Professor Samuel Autman’s fall 2019 First Year Seminar “Pencils to Smartphones: Uncovering DePauw’s History through the Archives,” links the analog to the digital. It blended archeology, history, English, journalism and videography, culminating in every student creating their own multimedia project. Along the way the students took a deep dive into the university’s history. They did a two-day campus foot tour, covering 31 locations. In addition, they walked through Greencastle’s courthouse square, concluding that day at the archives section of the Putnam County Library. The bulk of the semester, however, they poured over records and relics from the university’s archives on the second floor of Roy O. West Library. Too often students matriculate through DePauw without ever visiting the archives.

The multimedia projects presented on this page started as the second prompt for a paper based on “Students Lives and Traditions.” The idea was for students to follow their natural curiosity about their new school. These digital narratives reflect their own obsessions with the histories of Japanese students, Old Gold, the Greek system, Little Five and the Monon Bell game on the DePauw campus. While some students had created videos before, many relied on assistance from Faculty Instructional Technology Support director Veronica Pejril, University videographer Joel Bottom, University archivist Wesley Wilson, Tenzer Center director Michael Boyles and Pulliam Center Director Jonathan Nichols-Pethick, and many people behind the scenes.